Anker is best known for its well-received power banks and mobile charging accessories, but the Chinese company has also been busy building its subsidiary Soundcore brand, under which it offers home audio products like smart Bluetooth speakers and wireless earphones.

Anker says its ethos of making quality electronic devices at an affordable price also extends to its audio accessory lineup, so I gave the company's new Soundcore Life 2 noise-canceling headphones a spin to test out this claim.

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The latest addition to Anker's headset range costs $80 and replaces the company's first attempt at over-ear active noise-canceling (ANC) headphones, last year's Space NC cans. As with that pair, Anker is aiming to corner the sub-$100 noise-canceling market, so direct comparisons with premium ANC headphones offered by the likes of Bose and Sony wouldn't be fair. So how do they stack up on their own?

Good on them! No one with any sense would look to $80 ANC Bluetooth cans to provide audiophile quality sound, but that’s not the point. They are pulling the price of the tech down, and I’m all for that.

I'm not saying they're breaking any laws, but these are some distinct Bose visual elements they copied there. I like Anker chargers and cables, but stuff like this reminds me that some of their stuff is just Shenzhen parts-bin design.

I have last year’s Space model and am generally very happy with it. The gesture controls aren’t terrible, but I would have preferred physical buttons. The ANC isn’t great, but it does help some.

Alas, I spend time every night trying to plug that damned micro-USB abomination in, and am just not signing up for that again. Were these USB-C, I would be buying a second pair to keep at the office. As is, I’ll just wait another year or perhaps get one of the top-tier models.

I mean, it's true? I have 20 of the cords that would be correct for these, but I don't know where they are, because I haven't used them in forever. USB-C all of the things! It can't be that much more expensive to do, and makes them more "future proof" and you can have one cord to charge all of the things. Having an adapter is just like having a dongle, so that isn't useful either, and I love Anker products. All of my cords come from them.

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